


Flipside

by twofoldAxiom



Series: Falling Star AU [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Wings, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Memory Loss, Moving On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:01:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28482057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twofoldAxiom/pseuds/twofoldAxiom
Summary: Back in Skaia, Gamzee tries to remember. After Karkat fell from the sky, it's the hardest thing he's ever done.(Side fic to "A wish upon a fountain or a falling star.")
Relationships: Gamzee Makara/Karkat Vantas, Sollux Captor & Gamzee Makara, Sollux Captor & Karkat Vantas
Series: Falling Star AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2086284
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	Flipside

It had been the day after Karkat Vantas fell from the sky, when you'd flown over to his house and found his family half in panic, half in mourning. Someone had seen him fall, grasping the tail of a star, and you all knew without saying that for Karkat- even if he didn't fall into Skaia's many portal-clouds, there would be no coming back.

There was a search, of course. If not for a sign, then for a body. Neither came up.

You went home after a week, two weeks, three, a month of searching with the others for any sign that Karkat made it to the other side. You lay down and folded your wings over your head, blocking out the cruel light of a hundred falling stars.

~!~

It's been two months since you started keeping the journal.

His face is blurring already. You don't know why Skaia is like this, that whenever someone slips between worlds, it's like Skaia itself wants to be rid of them. You wonder if they're chosen for it, or if it's just cruel accidents. You pour all this and every little detail you still remember, from people telling you or from your own flickering memories, into writing.

You remember when you'd met him, the boy with no wings, heavy as a stone in your arms. You remember the traded jokes and insults, the weight of his hands, the sting of his words that you bore because you thought they were beautiful, he was beautiful. You remember when, drunk on the dark, medicinal liquor that you took for your migraines, the two of you traded secrets.

That he wondered, sometimes, if he was meant to be somewhere else.

That you loved him. That you said he was more than a pair of wings.

That you'd tell him a different secret.

That it was you, in the end, who’d doomed him. When you carried him, wobbling, unsteady, to the highest peak you could and told him about wishing stars, you didn't think he'd really try. You'd thought it was a story. You must have missed the hope in his eyes, with the way they caught the starlight.

~!~

You never knew the sort of desire that could eat someone alive like that, the kind that must have hollowed him out, until it began growing in _you._

It started small. You wondered if you could wish for him back. It's a miracle to take a star for yourself; maybe they can give you another miracle if you catch them after all. You feel an ache that begins in the pit of your chest and climbs into your throat until you want to scream, maybe until your voice shatters under the strain.

It grew stronger, day by day, as you forgot what you wanted in the first place. That was when the journal became the most valuable for you, reminding you that you wanted Karkat back so badly. You pore over the pages, tracing the words, the half-remembered shadows of his face in your mind.

You drew stars in the margins, and the words you would wish with.

"I want Karkat to come home."

~!~

Can you leave a miracle like this up to chance? You’re not sure.

~!~

It's been a year since Karkat fell, and you're pretty sure only you and his family still remember him. Any images of him fade, to the point that you had to redraw your sketches over and over and over, tracing the lines and praying that you were getting them right. 

This distant memory, this Karkat, how much did you love him that you would devote such care to preserving a memory the world itself wants to forget?

You hunger for a voice you can't recognize, for a weight in your arms that burns like hot iron. You want until you can want nothing else.

~!~

"Gamzee?"

You're surprised to see someone other than yourself here, on the peak you'd taken Karkat to. Sollux squints at you as you fold your wings behind you until they're little more than trails of mist, as you alight on the same stone he stands on. Stars twinkle overhead, thousands of lantern-like lights suspended across the fathomless dark, so close you can feel their warmth.

"Y'all know what ground you're motherfuckin' standing on, right?"

You dare to hope that you're not the only one who remembers him, that you're not alone in missing this distant, desperate, flightless fool. Sollux crosses his arms, mismatched eyes peering into your face like a diviner over a pool of blood. Whatever he was looking for, he doesn't find it, because he shakes his head. Your heart plummets.

Sollux rubs his arms, looking out at the vast expanse of shifting clouds, the flickers of worlds between worlds, the stars dropping into them in brilliant streaks.

"I couldn't sleep." He says. "I come here when I can't sleep, like... I don't know. Like something important happened here. I feel like I'm being pulled here every night, which is insane because I know what'll happen if I end up in a cloud or get caught in a star shower. But I can't stop."

As if to punctuate his words, a star falls into the cloud cover below. His wings rustle behind him, crackling with sparks. 

"It's been the worst tonight. I don't suppose _you_ have any answers."

You don't know what to say. The journal in your hands feels all the more precious in this moment. You sit cross-legged and beckon for him to sit beside you.

"I think I got the motherfuckin' thing, right here."

~!~

You don't catch a star that night. But you don't fall, either.

Sollux stays with you, listening to you, reading passages from your journal. It's the quietest you've ever seen him, poring over the words you've taken so much care to record, and when he looks up, you see the light of dawn already illuminating his face.

He's ashen, almost ghostly in the dawn. His hands tremble as he hands you back your journal.

"So someone died here." He says.

"We don't know that." You lean back against the stone. "Never found the motherfucker's body, remember?"

He runs a hand through his hair and leans back with you, exhaling a breath he must have been holding deep in his skinny chest. You're not good at reading people, but you think he might believe you.

"I don't remember him. Karkat, I mean." Sollux draws lines in the dust with one hand, aimless scribbles that he draws and then smooths with his palm before he draws them again. "But I feel like I should. It's only been a year. What kind of a friend does that make me? You wrote this whole journal and I- I didn't do _shit."_

"Nah, bro, you looked for him. Same as I did. Same as we all did." You shake your head. "You done did what you could."

It aches, in a way you don't understand. But it aches a little less, talking to Sollux.

"I miss him." You say. "I don't remember him, but I miss him. All I've got is this fancy little motherfuckin' book, but I miss him."

"I'll drink to that." Sollux says. "I miss him, too. And I've only really known him tonight, haven't I?"

"We knew him longer than that."

You don't fly home for a while, not until the light burns the stars into little more than memory and the sky turns pink and gold.

~!~

You come back the next night and Sollux is there, waiting for you.

"What's eating you tonight, bro?"

He sits cross-legged and gestures for you to sit beside him, his wings all folded up while you just let yours spill behind you against the rough, cool stone.

"I want to go over the journal again. I want to remember more."

You don't know how you feel about it. Like sharing the memory might corrupt it somehow. Like the more you say it, the thinner it wears, until it's nothing but a story.

In silence you can relive it. But what happens when it's in someone else's mouth?

But you hand Sollux the journal and let yourself listen this time, whenever he mentions something he remembers, or dreams, or simply makes up in that in-between where memory and fantasy meets. He'd helped build Karkat's glider. He'd traded stories about visions in the clouds. He'd told Karkat about a faraway place called Earth, where nobody could fly, where nobody _neede_ dto fly.

You wonder, if in the end, Karkat had caught his star and wished to be there.

But you'll never know. You lean against Sollux's side, your chin propped up on the top of his head. You watch stars flicker and fall, and you remember Karkat, and you cling to Sollux like a lifeline.

It hurts less and less. You don't know what that means.

~!~

It's been two years since Karkat Vantas fell from the sky. You know this because you wrote it down.

It's been one year since you'd first spoken with Sollux Captor on that spire of stone, wing against wing, arm against arm, telling stories of someone you only half-remember. You’d never really spoken to him before then, linked only by knowing Karkat knew both of you.

The journal's pages are worn thin with fingers and ink. You've drawn stars in the margins and a hundred wishes, refining each version until you'd gotten to the very heart of what it is you wanted to wish for.

It's been two days since you finished the last page of the journal. You'd stopped writing about Karkat about three fourths of the way through. There was nothing more to write.

You've filled the last twenty or so pages with sketches an songs, and not a star in sight.

**Author's Note:**

> Karkat isn't really dead, to be clear, but the trajectory of this ficlet is similar enough to a story about mourning that I figured I should tag for it. This is a fic in the same 'verse as "A wish upon a fountain or a falling star" but from the POV of characters in Skaia.
> 
> Happy New Year!


End file.
